The new justice platform never got off the ground

The fate of the new e-justice system will be decided in early September. The multi-million euro project never got off the ground, despite months of bug fixing.

Minister of Innovation and Digital Policy Nikodimos Damianou told the press on Thursday that “after all, we are in the final stages and ready to make a decision regarding the future of this project.” The minister said that the contractor company had made a number of efforts to ensure that the system could perform its tasks.

The e-justice functionality is currently being tested and crash test results are awaited. All stakeholders will then meet to discuss whether the new system can meet all requirements and ensure smooth functioning of the justice sector.

According to information from sources of the Phileleftheros publication, the test results of the electronic platform were unsatisfactory. Then there are two options for the development of events: either the contract with the contractor will be terminated, or the company will once again be given time to correct the mistakes.

The e-justice project was born back in September 2020. Then the Information Technology Department entered into a contract with IBM Italia S.p.A. to acquire the right to use the e-justice electronic justice system for 13 years. The cost of the project was 5,816,000 euros plus VAT.

The system was supposed to be implemented in December 2021 in pilot mode and be fully operational six months later - in June 2022. Subsequently, government authorities extended the project twice for nine months, the next launch date was scheduled for early 2023.

In the process, additional functions worth 452,068 euros were added: connecting the prosecutor's office system, the administrative court of international protection, improving document codes, a list of unfulfilled tasks, and others.

Additional changes and features were proposed in June 2023. For them, the contractor first asked for 1.7 million euros, but as a result of bargaining with the Cypriot authorities, he agreed to 890,930 euros.

The apogee was the launch of e-justice on January 15, 2024. In just one week, the platform's flaws caused chaos in the judicial system. Duplication of documents occurred, some documents were not recognized by the system, others were sent to the wrong recipient.

As a result, a week later the e-justice system was closed, and justice employees returned to the old i-justice platform, which they still use to this day. The Phileleftheros publication notes that the creation of this initial working i-justice system cost the country's budget only 250,000 euros.

Judging by the progress of work on the new system, justice will not soon move to a new platform.

The text was prepared based on materials from “Philelefteros” 

Other failures of the year

The project to renovate the marina and port of Larnaca has failed again. After another failure, the Ministry of Transport took up its implementation. More details here.

The construction of the LNG terminal is also progressing with huge delays, as reported here.